What Elena spoke about.

11

Feb

2025

ES Speech

Watch

The need to address urgent labour shortages and ensure quality jobs in the health care sector (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, we need health care and we need health care. The shortage of 1.2 million professionals is a drama, especially in rural areas, with a shortage that puts the fairness and right to health of European citizens at risk. In my region, Extremadura, after more than thirty years of socialist and leftist governments, there is a real medical desert: patients who need to travel for…

22

Jan

2025

ES Speech

Watch

Addressing EU demographic challenges: towards the implementation of the 2023 Demography Toolbox (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, I am very happy to hear your proposals, because Europe's underlying problem is demographic and hence the rest. We can no longer look the other way in the face of falling birth rates and aging rates. How can we expect more innovation or greater competitiveness if we ignore that Europe has been dying from its base for decades and forgetting young people? In more than 64% …

21

Jan

2025

ES Speech

Watch

Situation in Venezuela following the usurpation of the presidency on 10 January 2025 (debate)

Mr. President, despite his resounding and obvious defeat at the polls, Maduro has proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. The dictatorship oppresses its opponents, although they are an example of the struggle for freedom, like the heroine María Corina Machado, who does not need our congratulations, but our action. The international community has not stood idly by: The European Union has added 1…

16

Dec

2024

ES Speech

Watch

Regional Emergency Support: RESTORE (debate)

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, Spain, Portugal, France with its island of Mayotte: disasters in which Europe needs to articulate mechanisms for an imminent response. And it has to do so in the face of the irresponsibility of governments such as Spain, which is unable to execute works from its budget that would have avoided much pain and many deaths in our country. Because there are government…

27

Nov

2024

ES Speech

Watch

Recommendation on smoke- and aerosol-free environments (debate)

Mr President, cancer is a scourge that we must eradicate. It is the second leading cause of death in the European Union and every year 2.6 million people are diagnosed with cancer and 1.2 million die from it. The People's Group is strongly committed to Europe's Beating Cancer Plan. And the goal of achieving less than 5% of the population using tobacco by 2040 is a priority for us. What is also imp…

26

Nov

2024

ES Speech

Watch

Question Time with Commissioners - Challenges in the implementation of cohesion policy 2021-2027

13

Nov

2024

ES Speech

Watch

The devastating floods in Spain, the urgent need to support the victims, to improve preparedness and to fight the climate crisis (debate)

Madam President, I would like to focus exclusively on the victims. The Poyo ravine overflowed and caused the largest flooding in Valencia. "Neighbors point to the Poyo ravine as the main responsible for the flood" (end of quote). I am proud to be Spanish and I am proud to be European, because it is Europe that has the answer to these catastrophes. Cohesion policy must respond to the reconstruction…

23

Oct

2024

ES Speech

Watch

The important role of cities and regions in the EU – for a green, social and prosperous local development (debate)

Mr President, as Robert Schuman said: “I am a European; I wish, however, to remain French, and, in France, Lorraine is my little homeland. Cities and regions were always on the minds of the people who started the European project. I have been mayor of my city, Cáceres, and I can see the enormous impact that European funds have had on local development and the way in which multilevel governance and…

10

Oct

2024

ES Speech

Watch

World Mental Health Day - need for a comprehensive EU strategy on mental health (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, listen to me: 1% of deaths in the European Union occur by suicide. We speak, according to the European Statistical Office, of 47 000 deaths per year. One hundred and thirty citizens of the European Union will have lost their lives today while I speak to them. In Spain, 41% of adolescents – I repeat, 41% – report having had mental health problems. What's worse: One in th…